03 Jan 2019
US and Israel withdraw from Unesco
BY Luke Cloherty
The US and Israeli governments have now officially withdrawn their respective countries’ memberships from Unesco, following notices to withdraw being handed in by the two countries in Q4 2017.
As the new year was sworn in, both countries’ exits from the body became effective, however, the US looks set to stay engaged with Unesco at non-member level as an observer state on non-politicised issues.
These issues include World Heritage site protection, press freedom advocation and the promotion of scientific collaboration and education – and the US may take the option of applying for observer state status at Unesco’s Executive Board meetings in Q2 of this year.
The move has been made at least in part due to sentiments that the Paris-based body is anti-Israel. Unesco has previously publicly criticised Israel’s occupation of East Jerusalem and named ancient Jewish sites as Palestinian World Heritage Sites, as well as granting full membership to Palestine in 2011.
From then, both the US and Israel stopped supplying funding to Unesco and the US has been as vocal as demanding fundamental reform at the organisation.
It is unclear as yet how the withdrawal will affect US and Israeli World Heritage Sites. Unesco director-general Audrey Azoulay, who took up her post just after the US announced its exit plans, has offered gestures in the way of appeasement – among them, the launch of a Holocaust education website and the UN’s first educational guidelines on fighting anti-Semitism.
There are 23 World Heritage sites in the US, including Grand Canyon National Park, Independence Hall, Yellowstone National Park and the Statue of Liberty, while Israel currently has nine.
A New York Times article written last year saw Stefan Simon, the director of Global Cultural Heritage Initiatives at Yale University state that there would be negative effects.
"With the US once responsible for approximately 22 per cent of Unesco’s budget, of course, the announced withdrawal is detrimental," he said.
"It would painfully reduce Unesco’s ability to fulfil its important missions, such as advancing and promoting literacy, gender equality, freedom of expression and scientific collaboration."
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